


Recordkeeping

by SomeBratInAMask



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Alternate Universe - A/B/O Dynamics, Alternate Universe - Human, Drabble Collection, M/M, OLD OLD OLD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-17
Updated: 2019-01-17
Packaged: 2019-10-11 12:08:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 4,816
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17446685
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SomeBratInAMask/pseuds/SomeBratInAMask
Summary: Rediscovered a few old drabbles from high school that I thought were worth uploading to my AO3. For posterity. Plus one new one :)Chaps. 1-2: PruAme - OmegaverseChap. 3: PruAme -StreetfightersChap. 4:: RusAme - Monopoly Board GameChap. 5: RusAme - BracesMODERN>>Chap. 6: RusAme - H/C





	1. PruAme - Omegaverse

**Author's Note:**

> ***Mg. is the abbreviation for the title of “mega,” which is similar to our miss/ms. Ap. would be the abbreviation for the title of “alph,” which is the equivalent of our mister/mr.
> 
> Originally dedicated to cookieprusiana, now rockitsuu. 
> 
> DATED: July 23, 2014.

“God, this is so right,” snickered Gilbert, white fingers curling around the chain link fence. Antonio grasped the wire beside him, making a vaguely guttural noise when one of the goalies leaped to wham the lacrosse ball across the school’s outdoor field. Francis followed Antonio’s gaze and whistled low at the boy’s delicate, dirt-smeared face. “There is nothing more gratifying than watching omega sports practices,” Gilbert testified. Tingling warmth shuddered down his body as a breeze carried the team’s pheromones to where they stood outside the green. After enough action, the sweat would be enough to waft on its own. “Just look how adeptly they handle those balls.” Gil sighed contentedly. “Just as God intended.”

A couple players in yellow jerseys gained after a broad-shouldered student in a blue jersey, who sped toward the opposite team’s goal, in control of the lacrosse ball. He powerfully elbowed each of their chests without interrupting his run, eyes trained unwaveringly forward as his opponents fell to the ground breathlessly. Francis winced. “I hope that’s not God’s intention for my balls.”

The same boy cut left across the grass, jabbing another opponent’s throat with his padded elbow, causing them to stumble and lose advantage. He swung the stick, propelling the ball into the net at an angle the goalie did not cover in time. The boy in blue threw his hands in the air, shouting in victory. Antonio grimaced. “That omega’s pretty brutal.”

“Downright vicious,” Gil breathed, impressed. “It’s still early in the game, too.” Gilbert traced him throughout the entire game. Antonio and Francis drifted to their respective homes a half hour into their practice, having caught enough of the omegas’ pheromones to ruminate over for the night. Gilbert remained at the gate; enraptured by those broad shoulders and how determined they were to make every shot.

When practice ended, the star of the blue jerseys tore off his headgear and hollered a joyous,  _“Fuck yeah!”_  The responses were mixed mutterings of “oh, fucking can it, Jones” and shouted “suck on that, bitches!”  _Jones_  was a tan omega male with blond hair that stuck to the back of his neck in salty sweat Gilbert could detect from his distance. He also wore glasses, which were sliding down his slicked nose, despite his frequent attempts to adjust them correctly. He was grinning from ear to ear, unashamed of his pride, against all W Academy’s proper omega training.

The coach blew his whistle. “Alright, Mg. Jones,” he admonished, “That’s enough good sportsmanship for today, I think.”

Jones’ smile faltered an inch, but he apologized “my bad, coach” with the instructed expression of good humor. The coach gave a look that clearly spoke “yeah, I’m sure you’re real fucking sorry, you undisciplined teenaged trash.”

“Get inside, omegas,” he ordered. “Get dressed and go home.” The team filed into the locker room, faces flushed from the exercise.

Gilbert watched Jones leave his vision with the sort of sorrow one feels upon their strawberry ice cream cone with chocolate sprinkles splatting on the dirty sidewalk. He decided he could wait him out. Omegas like that weren’t something Gilbert could pass up.


	2. PruAme - Omegaverse pt. 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Title: "Circus Performers Are Not Wallflowers"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally dedicated to cookieprusiana, now rockitsuu.
> 
> DATED: December 11, 2014

“I’m going stag,” Alfred answers, slamming his locker with more force than needed. Several nearby students startle at the loud bang, like cymbals clashing through the half-asleep, half-dead silence of Monday morning.

Gilbert offers his hands out to Alfred’s backpack, who slings it over own his shoulder instead. “Date couldn’t make it to prom?” Gilbert guesses, shoving his empty palms in his jean pockets as if he could bury the rejection beneath balls of lint.

“You don’t  _need_  a date,” Alfred reminds. His cheeks seem to puff out, which is an irritating omega trait for attention that doesn’t quit fit him. Alfred has this unconquerable energy to him that makes everything anyone else does look like a cheap party trick. That includes the possible pout swelling his lips, which is uniquely endearing on him and whiny on everyone else.

“Have you asked anyone? I get the feeling you’re not the waiting type,” Gilbert teases. Since watching omegas’ lacrosse practice two weeks ago, Gilbert has been acutely aware of Alfred’s presence everywhere on campus. That he was not always this aware is boggling actually, as Alfred is very loud, very tall, and very spastic. His voice fluxes between inside and outside volumes, regardless of if he is inside or outside. It peaks in excitement, fast and booming, then wanes to tolerable levels when the conversation shifts to duller topics, such as the other person. His head is always a couple inches taller than the crowd, blond hair catching light whenever there is any, cowlick distinguishing him before he even shows his face. Like his voice, his limbs are prone to vibrating at high intensities the more eager he is. His head jerks instead of turning, arms flailing in wild emphasis, legs pivoting with no detectable blinker, aborting a direction and unexpectedly taking another all in one jolt. His body is like a travelling circus; freakishly eye-catching mostly, though sometimes eye-catchingly freakish.

Alfred is not the waiting type.

Circus performers are not wallflowers.

“No one to ask,” Alfred says simply. He unzips his bag and digs out a giant Honey Bun. He tears the wrapper, icing sticking to the plastic like sugared tar. Alfred takes a whopping bite, jaw extending somehow without detaching, filling his cheeks in a laughable impression of what must be the Adonis of chipmunks.

Maybe Alfred hadn’t been pouting, but bloating.

Gilbert tries not to focus on the frosting flakes glued about Alfred’s lips. “Aren’t most of your friends alphas? You could ask one of them to the dance,” he suggests, hoping that the mere idea of dating one of Alfred’s numerous, sport-thumping jock pals will make him crinkle his nose in disgust.

Alfred’s face does not mutilate into anything suitably repulsed. “Not really. I act too much like them, I think. It would be like dating kin.” Alfred shrugs.

“Bullshit,” Gilbert denounces. “You know what,” he points at Alfred, bobbing his finger, “I know exactly what their problem is: they’re not dominant enough.”

Alfred’s eyebrows scrunch in confusion. “I think Elizaveta is pretty dominant. She’s captain of the swim and wrestling teams.”

Gilbert will never tire of hearing how great his best friend is when he’s trying to sell himself. “So?” he surges forward, snorting. “Clearly, she is intimidated by you. You’re too much to handle for her.”

Alfred’s knuckles tighten around the strap of his backpack. “Handle,” he repeats, staring Gilbert down. Good, he has a captive audience now.  
  
“That’s right,” he continues bravely. “You need a strong alpha, someone who isn’t afraid of you kicking their ass, or whatever. An alpha who can take care of you, ya’ know?” Gilbert folds his arms across his chest and grins with all his teeth.

Alfred nods slowly. “Uh-huh.”

Gilbert waits a respectful five seconds for an actual response before decidedly bringing it home. “And, uh.” He clears his throat, nervous. Pointedly raising his chin, he announces, “I would like to submit my name in the running, as someone not at all intimidated by you, to take you to prom this Saturday.”

Alfred chuckles, looking at the white-tiled floor and rubbing the back of his neck. “Alright, Weilschmidt,” he accepts. This is the first time Alfred has addressed him, and it’s his last name. Something giddy pops like a balloon in his chest. Gilbert suspects that if he speaks now, his voice will sound like inhaled helium.

Alfred smiles at Gilbert, a challenging curl of the lips that transports them from the hallway to the lacrosse field, both wearing different jerseys. Alfred punches his shoulder, Gilbert squeaking in surprise.

“I got to get to homeroom, bell’s about to ring.” Alfred heads to leave, but not before saying, “By the way, my number is on Facebook. RSVP me when you get home, ‘cause I’ll probably forget.”

After Alfred is gone, Gilbert clutches his shoulder and consequently hisses in pain. That punch wasn’t playful.


	3. PruAme - Streetfighter AU

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally dedicated to cookieprusiana, now rockitsuu.
> 
> DATED: October 15, 2014

Heat bursts beneath Gilbert’s skin like the sizzling  _pops!_ of boiling water where a fist lands cleanly on his cheek. He grabs the hand in blind instinct that doesn’t fail him, yanking the man with that oppressive size forward, making him fall to his knees on the asphalt. He slams his knuckles down on the man’s neck, wrenching a pained grunt from him until he suddenly lifts Gilbert over his shoulders and suplexes him. Cement rattles his spine like it’s just a guitar string being strum, vibrating his body to a violent melody. He grits his teeth and prays he’s not paralyzed. 

A shadow the shape of a man but the size of a building obscures the streetlights, looming over Gilbert who can’t fucking move, and holy shit,  _scrap that,_ he’ll take paralysis gladly so long as this guy doesn’t end him right here. Fat fingers slide through his thin strands of hair before clenching him by the back of his head and jerking him up. 

_“Yo, it’s the police! Get the fuck out of here! The cops! The cops!”_

Gilbert’s skull is dropped unceremoniously to the ground as the crowd chaotically disperses, gamblers running this way and that, spitting cusses. Feet trample of his face and he curls into himself, guarding his head. That’s a good sign against paralysis. Thank you, God. Gilbert’s faith is renewed for the week,  _at least._  A foot nearly kicks his crotch, which he senses and grabs the foot in time to trip the guy over and away from his junk.

Make that a month of renewed faith. 

 _“Gilbert!"_ he makes out just barely over the myriad of shouts.  _"Gilbert!”_

“Fuck,” Gilbert bites out. He can’t fucking  _think_  with all these damn shoes stepping on him, and  _fucking hell,_  was that a cleat?

“Gilbert!” sounds again, much closer and terrifyingly familiar.

“Over here!” Gilbert yells, untucking his chin long enough to get his voice out before hurriedly burrowing his face between his elbows. He peers out among the sea of ankles and expensive sneakers and finds two plain brown boots barreling toward him. 

Alfred is tossing people out his way like rag dolls. Jesus Christ, he better not step on him. He almost sticks his hand up to wave before remembering how stupid that would be. Tan hands dip down like a flash of honey-colored lightning, grabbing Gilbert’s shoulders and pulling him upward. Arm around him, Alfred drags Gilbert through the stampede with force and speed Gilbert thinks he could hinder if he actually ran instead of being towed. 

Alfred has Gilbert past the Charybdis of feet rather quickly, tugging him down an alley between two apartments smelling of meth. It’s dark and there’s faint laughter coming from one of the windows, Gilbert never would’ve chosen this route for a safe escape, but he’s also not at liberty to offer an opinion on being street smart. 

Alfred halts their mad dash, swinging Gilbert by his arm to the ground. It’s a weird swing, which spins Gilbert around like a dance and actually plants him gently on his rear. Gilbert leans haggardly against the brick of the apartment. “Dude, we can’t stay here, the cops are here and they’ll check - “

“Nah, you can chill,” Alfred interrupts, almost callous. He stuffs his hands into the pockets of his beautiful red Letterman jacket, smirking with a thousand dollar set of teeth that Gilbert can vouch for with old pictures of brace face Alfred and secret retainers buried in his pillow sheets. Gilbert thinks it’s just another of those awe-inspiring miracles that always seem to follow Alfred that he hasn’t been mugged yet. “There are no cops,” Alfred confesses. “That was me. I knew you were here.” It’s still not a good idea to rest anywhere near this odor, but Gilbert is not in a rush to further enlighten Alfred on what kind of neighborhood this is.

Gilbert lolls his head back, closing his eyes. “How’s that, golden boy?”

“I asked your friends.”

“Great friends.”

Gilbert hears him scoff. “Yeah, I’m sure.”

Gilbert peeks open an eye, raising a brow. “One of us has to be.”

“Or, you know, you could just admit they’re not friends at all, because if they were, they would’ve stopped you.”

“Like they could.”

“Did they try?" 

Gilbert sighs, looking down at his clasped hands between his knees. “Look, I’m making money. I want to get my own place before I graduate.”

"Get a job.”

“Doesn’t pay as much as this does, golden boy,” Gilbert says, smiling.

“Stop that,” Alfred frowns.

“Stop what?”

“Being a condescending dick. I can’t help if I’m better than you.”

Gilbert makes an offended sound.

Alfred’s blue eyes widen. “I didn’t mean it like that! I just meant that my work ethic is, you know, and I’m going to UCLA soon. I’m just, uh.” What a Ken doll. Gilbert could swoon going down on that cock. He’s probably anything but a Ken doll down there. “Do you need to go to the hospital? I won’t tell my parents.”

“Won’t they know when the insurance claim arrives?”

“Oh.” Alfred looks down, lips pursed in thought.

“Don’t hurt yourself,” Gilbert jibes. 

“What?”

“Nothing. I’m fine. Just sore.”

“You’re bleeding everywhere.”

“Doesn’t mean anything,” Gilbert dismisses.

Alfred’s eyebrows knit together in concern. “My mom took you in so you would stop doing this.”

“Can take the boy out of the hood, but can’t take the hood out of the boy, I guess,” jokes Gilbert.

“I’m serious.”

“So am I,” Gilbert insists. “I appreciate you guys making my mom feeling better about my lodging while she wears orange, but my life doesn’t stop just because it’s next to your lives. I can’t depend on your parents forever. I’m not even their kid.”

“Yes, you are,” Alfred argues softly. He looks hurt, and he’s not even the victim. Gilbert is. He’s a victim of his deadbeat dad and his jailbird mom and his runaway brother. He’s a victim of his shitty childhood and his frequent evictions and the stench of poverty that always hung over his crap clothes at his uptown school. “You’re their godchild. They have a responsibility.”

“Do I look like a fucking Catholic to you?” Gilbert sneers.

“You look like a piece of shit.”

“I feel like one!”

“Well, good, ‘cause you are one!”

Gilbert and Alfred stare each other down. Alfred cracks, sighing and rubbing at his eyes. “I don’t want to argue religion with you. I just want to take you home.”

Gilbert wants him to take him home, too. Alfred’s home. Alfred’s room and Alfred’s bed, where the blankets are never tucked into the mattress and there’s boxers and socks twisted up in the sheets. He wants to lay in that bed. He wants to cry. He’s so fucking tired of the streets and he wishes they didn’t feel as much like home as they do.

“Then take me home,” Gilbert says simply. 

He wants Alfred to be his home.


	4. RusAme - Monopoly

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous: Ivan squints. It is late, so very late. The Scrabble board is a confusing mash of Russian and American slang. It had started as a joke--Ivan had joked he was better at English. Alfred had taken it personally. Alfred cautiously sets down two tiles, debates the merits of his not-word. Ivan grits his teeth and sets down a Q. Alfred picks up the Russian dictionary nearby. The game drags on. Ivan has to go to work. Doesn't. In the end, Alfred flips the board. The two don't talk for a week.
> 
> DATED: April 12, 2015

It had been months since their last board game together. Ivan had brought home Monopoly, hoping to start anew. Game nights looked so fun in the commercials.

Alfred flinches when he sees the board game, still wrapped in plastic from the store, Ivan’s hands on each side. “Whoa, whoa, big guy,” he laughs nervously, holding up his palms in defense. “What exactly do you think you’re allowing into our house?”

Ivan glances down at the box, then curiously back at Alfred. “Monopoly,” he answers. “You and Mathew talk about it all the time. You have fond childhood memories of it, do you not?”

“I do not,” replies Alfred mechanically. The familiar hollowness is already taking up space in his gut, that resigned terror every time someone recommends playing Monopoly. No one liked Monopoly in his household. They must’ve played it once a month, twice during holiday season.

Everyone hated Monopoly. Matt once tried burning the game. Alfred helped him gather the leaves and oil to throw into the fire pit. They watched in solemn silence as the cardboard lit around the edges before crumpling in on itself, like the shrinking spine of an elderly man withering away.

They both agreed not to tell their parents. Francis and Arthur hated Monopoly just as much as Matt and Alfred, but property was property, and property costed money. If Monopoly had taught them anything, it was that money destroyed the lives most in love with it. And so they swore themselves to secrecy.

The second week of the month after, there it was again in the hallway closet. No new wrapping. The same dog that had been missing for years was gone, as it always had been. Alfred shuddered as his family set it up.

Alfred’s throat feels sick as Ivan slices through the plastic sheath with his nail, lifts the top and unearths the board. “The dog is quite cute,” Ivan observes.

“Yeah.”

“I think I’ll play the dog. You?”

“Moneybags,” is all Alfred can say. He was always moneybags, since he could remember. His eyes flicker forlornly to his player as Ivan organizes the money. He wishes he was playing Jumanji. He wishes a dinosaur would materialize and eat his face off, or an old hunter would blast his brains out with a rifle, or a giant man-eating plant would inject him with poison and digest his body like a fly.

Ivan is the banker. Alfred chokes back that instinctive distrust and suspicion, so innate after years of this game, and recounts the reasons for marrying Ivan. There are none apparent at this moment. Alfred is pretty certain the man he married was not the kind of man who brought home  _Monopoly,_  of all games.

Alfred thought he had left that life behind.

_It always comes back. You’ll never finish with the game. The game will never finish with you._

“It’s my turn!” Ivan snaps as Alfred snatches up the die.

“No, it’s mine again.”

“You don’t have a double turn!”

“Nope, I don’t. I have an infinity turn. You see that house on the jail, right next to you?”

Ivan glares at the jail. “Yes. Why do you have a house there?” He moves to remove the house, but Alfred swats his hand away.

“I bought the jail,” Alfred explains.

“Excuse me?”

“I bought the jail,” Alfred repeats. He rattles the die in his hands, tossing them into the box’s upside down lid. Three dots.

“You can’t buy the jail!” Ivan exclaims incredulously.

“Sure can,” dismisses Alfred. “Paid the bank and everything.”

Ivan’s brows furrow and his mouth hangs in bafflement. “I don’t remember this!”

Alfred shrugs. “Not my fault if you’re a shit banker, dude. Anyway, you’re in jail right now. And since I own the jail, I’m deciding you can’t ever leave. That’s why I get infinite turns.”

Ivan stares at Alfred, flabbergasted. Then, “I’m filing for a divorce.”

Alfred snorts, flicks over his moneybags. “Good luck doing that from inside the prison system.”


	5. RusAme - Braces

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous: Ivan grinned. The boy--Alfred--had braces. He strolled across the class room, but Alfred saw him coming. Alfred held up a hand. "Before we begin, I'm probably going to punch you." Ivan nodded. "Thhhat's okay," he said, lisping. He was already laughing as the fist swig toward his face.
> 
> DATED: April 23, 2015

“Luckily, you’re only missing one tooth - your canine. Your lips hide it, anyway, so it won’t even matter if it’s a different color than your real teeth. Smile for me, big guy?”

Ivan bared his teeth without smiling. The dentist grimaced theatrically, whistling in sympathetic pain. “One of hell of a smile, kid,” said Dr. Zatow, words racing like Olympic runners. “You’ll definitely need braces. That guy really meant it when he said he’d rearrange your face, I guess,” he joked. Ivan’s lips slammed together like doors. He wished Dr. Zatow would stop talking long enough to realize Ivan was glaring.

Ivan met with his orthodontist the next day. A year with braces, because his mother’s insurance covered it, and  _no, Vanya, you know we can’t afford Invisalign._

His orthodontist condescended to him.  _We can color you brackets, make it look cool._ As if this was cosmetic, and not an unfortunate medical procedure imposed on Ivan on the brink of adulthood. He chose them in a pretty, light pink.

Ivan had been surviving off of yogurt for two days and had just advanced to bread when Alfred decided to plop his tray across Ivan in the cafeteria. “It’th taco day, tho I figured I’d give back to the thchool and thit with you before you wandered off in thearch of friendship victimth,” he announced. He reached into his pocket and set a small blue case on the table. His thumbs went into mouth and removed two sets of retainers, strands of saliva attached to the metal like slimy fingers. He dropped them into the blue case and wiped his spit-wet fingers on his jeans.

Ivan smiled closed-lipped. “It’s a wonder you and your retainers haven’t been banned from the cafeteria, with how unsanitary you are.”

Alfred’s brows furrowed, head cocking. “Braginski,” he said, the taco in his hands leaking red sauce along his palms, down his wrists. “Open your mouth.”

Ivan’s jaw tightened. He lifted his peanut butter and jelly sandwich, speaking behind it. “No. I might catch something.”

Alfred’s hand surged forward and ripped away Ivan’s sandwich. “Say ‘ah.’”

Ivan shook his head. 

“You have fucking braces and I  _know_  you do! Now say ‘ah’!” 

“Why should I?”

Alfred rolled his eyes. “Because I want to give you a big fucking kiss.”

“Try it and I’ll make your gums bleed,” Ivan hissed, lips curling over his braces.

Alfred’s mouth stretched into a grin, tossing Ivan’s sandwich back. “Looks I beat you to it, broski.”


	6. RusAme - H/C

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, one of my FAVORITE Hetalia fics in high school was writingandchocolatemilk's [A Nice Guy.](http://writingandchocolatemilk.tumblr.com/post/96921642209/a-nice-guy) Earlier today, I was stalking her blog and I happened upon it again. And I thought, wow, we can't just leave Alfred hanging like that! So, here we are.

Alfred had been doing a bang-up job of moving on. He dropped Arthur's stuff off two weeks after he left Alfred for Francis. It was nothing vitally important, as Arthur had been more hesitant to make himself a permanent fixture in Alfred's life than the other way around. Alfred had at least had a drawer in Arthur's bedroom, but Arthur insisted on an overnight bag for himself. He kept thorough inventory of it, too, like a fugitive always on the brink of hightailing it out of town would their rucksack. Over the course of their year-long relationship, some things just never made it back in the bag.

Again, nothing important to Arthur. Just things Alfred couldn't bear to face every day. Things important to Alfred because they were the remainders of Arthur.

A month and a half post-break up, Alfred deleted the pictures from his phone - although not before transferring them to a file buried within a file on his computer.

Three months, and Alfred was on Tinder. Actually, he had signed up a month after the split but three months marks the time he was able to go on a date and not hate every second of it.

Alfred was making slow but steady progress. And then he ran into Francis at the grocery store, holding hands with Peter and picking out back-to-school clothes. Five months of recovery, undone in sixty seconds. Francis and Peter waved at him, and Arthur could only think to abandon his shopping cart right there in the aisle and make a mad dash to the parking lot.

He cried for twenty minutes and then drove to a bar, taking time to clean the dried tears off his glasses and blow his nose like a man before getting out the car.

As to be expected on a Tuesday afternoon, the bar was deserted save for a few sad-looking men and a sadder-looking bartender. "Yup," he said aloud, grabbing the attention of the bartender and a big dude sitting at the stools. "Looks like I've found my people," he declared, jumping on a stool a few seats down from the Big Dude.

Big Dude looked down on from over his large, curved nose. Alfred nodded at him. Big Dude quirked a single brow in response.

Alfred ordered a triple whiskey.

"Your eyes are red," Big Dude commented. He had a thick Russian accent and was nursing an entire bottle of vodka.

Alfred downed half of his first glass. "Actually," he said, licking the beer off his lips, "they're blue."

Big Dude's lips pulled upward in something that was almost a smile but not really. "Not today, they aren't."

Alfred rubbed his eyes self-consciously, realized Big Dude was smirking, and dropped his hands with an indignant huff.

It wasn’t until his third glass that he noticed Big Dude _still_ staring. “Hey,” he said, “why don’t you watch the TV or something?”

Big Dude shrugged. “Nothing on I care for.”

“Well, too bad. I’m not here for your entertainment.”

Big Dude sat up a little straight and titled his head. His bangs, white as now, fell into Elizabeth Taylor-violet eyes. “What _are_ you here for?” he asked, and those violet eyes danced with amusement.

Alfred sighed and propped his head in his hand. “To drown my sorrows,” he replied flatly. “Same as you and every other jackass getting drunk at 2pm.”

“My, my,” Big Dude tutted. “Your misery loves to think it has company.”

Alfred narrowed his eyes, confused. He could feel his brain sloshing around in his skull trying to make sense of what Big Dude said. “Are you saying I’m alone? That everyone else here is fucking awesome?”

“It’s possible,” Big Dude said neutrally. “I’d like to think I’m here as a well-adjusted alcoholic who hates to drink alone, and not – ” he gestured to Alfred’s entirety, “this.”

Heated, Alfred sneered, “I’d hate to break it you, pal, but you _are_ alone.”

Big Dude’s expression was unfazed, even pleasant. “Maybe a bit ago, but not now.” And then Big Dude did a real smile, one weirdly childish in its sweetness, and ordered a drink for Alfred. Turning back to him, he said, “My company likes your misery.”

Alfred wrinkled his nose. “Weird,” he said. The bartender placed his free drink in front of him, and Alfred thought, who was _he_ to put on airs? So he scooted over a few seats until he was sitting right next to Big Dude.

Big Dude’s smile bloomed bigger, rounding his cheeks like two very pale apples. “Ivan,” he informed, holding out his hand to shake.

Alfred fist-bumped it on purpose. “Alfred. Are you albino? You’re, like, really pale and you’ve got kind of fucked up eyes.”

Ivan laughed, which made Alfred laugh because he was drunk and Ivan’s laugh was nice.

Alfred definitely delivered his misery as the drinks continued. He told him all about Arthur and how great his kid was and how he cheated on him with this guy whose hair was perfectly coiffed and his beard was perfect and sexy, and how it was Alfred’s fault for seeing the signs and not just letting Arthur go, and how he saw Francis earlier and remembered how he used to think some day he’d be the one holding Peter’s hand in a grocery store, and that was some fucking thought because he had no right to someone else’s kid, but the thought had been nice at the time and still was if Alfred being honest with himself.

And Alfred was being so, so honest.

“It’s good,” Ivan insisted. “It’s about time you were honest about your relationship with this man.”

Alfred pulled back with a confused look. “What are you _talking_ about? I was _always_ honest with him. I laid out – ” Alfred spread his hands out, _“all_ my cards on the table. I _told_ him I loved him.”

Ivan pointed a big finger at him from around his vodka bottle. “But you didn’t tell him you were angry.”

Alfred blinked. Told Arthur he was angry? “Should I have?” he asked.

Ivan shrugged. Alfred had a fleeting thought that he did that a lot for a guy who talked so confidently. As if he knew the answers but didn’t care if Alfred did. “I would have,” answered Ivan. “Love is passion, both sides of it. That’s why your man left his man, and why he came back anyways. Passion.”

Alfred considered this. Then he blew hot air from between his lips, finished with a raspberry. “Guess I didn’t love him enough. Should’ve adopted a kid with him and then changed my mind and fucked off instead. That would’ve shown how much I cared.”

Ivan snickered. “Love is also very, very dumb,” he concluded, taking a drink. “And sometimes selfish. But we’re better for it in the end.”

“How do you figure that?”

Ivan seemed to contemplate the question as he stared at his bottle. “I think it adds something,” he decided. Suddenly he was looking at Alfred in a way that made him feel even drunker. “Wouldn’t have met you at this bar had you not loved that other, foolish man.”

Alfred couldn’t fight the grin off his face. “Am I adding something to your life then, big guy?”

Ivan returned his smile, sweet and pleasant where Alfred was sure his was wide and goofy. “Why, I think you are, Alfred. I think you are.”


End file.
